


Cooling Their Heels

by moon_custafer



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Android, Chaptered, Gen, Ice Planet, cursed with immortality sort of, hurt/comfort sort of, non-cursed archeological dig for once, space cops, space gangsters, the Doctor and Bill are mostly there as PoV so far
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2018-12-24 02:05:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12002664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_custafer/pseuds/moon_custafer
Summary: “So far we’ve turned up some traces of gold and silicate that don’t match anything in the surrounding geology, but no intact microchips as yet. So here we are, sifting for phytoliths and wasting a perfectly good linguist --"“-- not to mention the best android I’ve seen in decades," added the Doctor, giving Afters a fierce but admiring stare. The android had returned from recharging and joined them at the table where a place had been set for him, though there was no coffee in the cup he held and occasionally gestured with. "Seriously -- you are brilliant. Most android designers either try to be perfectly realistic, or go all abstract, steer clear of the uncanny valley. But whoever made you jumped right over it. Threw in all kinds of little in-jokes too -- like how you look human, but then you’ve got eyes the same colour -- the exact same colour mind you --as a 21st-century Earth computer’s Blue Screen of Death. Hilarious!”Half-frozen on an icy planet, the Doctor and Bill are picked up by an archeological expedition looking for evidence of an abandoned human colony.





	1. Chapter 1

_Prologue_

The village of Ulaba, on the planet Babel, was not in itself an unpleasant place, but it was nowhere near anywhere people usually wanted to go. Which is why, one morning at the beginning of the dry winter, the keeper of the local café was surprised when a young man she’d never seen before limped into her establishment and ordered a cup of tea.

"Don’t often get strangers around here,” she observed.

"I was going to ask for directions,” her visitor answered, “only I thought I’d better order the tea first.” He had a round, pleasant brown face, a knapsack, and an unidentifiable but high-tech device slung around his neck on a padded strap. “Is there any road I can take to get from this town to Auverdere?”

"Only a footpath, love. Goes from that end of the street there, past the market square and the Corner Man, up towards the mountains. Take you a day or so to walk to Auverdere. ”

"In that case,” sighed the young man, “I’d better get a lunch as well." He knit his brow. “What do you mean by the 'Corner Man?'"

"Stands on the corner by the square. Been there, oh, since I was a little girl, if not longer. Vines growing all over him.”

“A statue, you mean?”

"No, he’s a person.” The café keeper hesitated: “Mind you, he’s not human, and I’m not sure he’s properly alive, not like you or me. But he talks, sometimes. Answers, if you ask him things.”

The young man paid for his tea and two somewhat greasy wrapped pasties that he placed in his knapsack. Straightening up and lifting the pack to his shoulder, he asked:

"Do you think anyone would mind if I had a look at the Corner Man? I’m a historian – I’m going to Auverdere to take a look at the temple there – and you’ve raised my curiosity.”

"Go right ahead. He’s not – he’s not an idol or anything,” said the woman. “None of that pagan stuff round here.”

“Er, thanks,” said the historian with a touch of awkwardness. “Dr. Sam Bannerjee.” He shook her hand.

"Lace Obermeyer,” replied the café owner non-commitally, and she returned to polishing the bar. Dr. Bannerjee wondered if he should have asked whether the village had a hotel as he walked, tired, and tired at the thought of the thought of more walking, to the corner of the square. Looking around at the few buildings and stalls, he decided the question wouldn’t likely have been worth it.

The corner turned out to be a partial wall near the intersection of two paths, with greenery climbing it and, yes, there was a human-shaped figure there among the vines. Dr. Bannerjee gasped, loud enough to amuse a man standing nearby with a  cart of apples.

“It _is_ a bit of a shock when you first see him,” he offered.

"I wouldn’t say a shock,” Bannerjee murmured. He ventured a bit closer to examine the face beneath the spread of red-leaved vines. _Has to be an android_ , he thought, _but I’ve never seen one like that before._ The well-modelled features looked almost human; they even had the slight translucence of living flesh. Only their perfection gave them away. Then the eyes opened, and Bannerjee’s heart nearly stopped at the flash of those unnaturally bright blue irises.

"Hello,” said the android.

“Now that’s peculiar,” said the man with the apple cart. “He doesn’t usually speak first.”

“Hello. Er, my name’s Dr. Sam Bannerjee. And you are--?" The android half-lowered his startling eyes, then raised them again.

“They used to call me the Golden Afternoon." There was the slightest touch of something in his placid voice, but Dr. Bannerjee was unsure if it was wistfulness or irony. "Are you by any chance," continued the Golden Afternoon, "in need of a companion or guide?” Bannerjee glanced at the apple-cart man, but finding that worthy standing silently with his mouth agape, he replied:

“I’m trying to get to Auverdere. They tell me it’s a day’s walk.”

"It is, if the path is what I remember. May I come with you?” Bannerjee nodded, and as the apple-cart man, and the few other villagers loitering about the square, stared in disbelief, the android pulled free of the vines that had entangled him and stepped forth as if he’d merely paused for a few minutes to rest.

The historian wondered if the people of Ulah would try to stop the Golden Afternoon from leaving with him, but no one moved a muscle as they set forth on the path out of the village.

After a half-hour of walking, he finally dared more questions:

"How long were you there? And why?”

“Seventy-eight standard years, give or take a bit. And I was waiting.”

“For what?”

“For someone going to Auverdere.”

"I can’t be the first traveler in seventy-eight years.”

“Well,” said the Golden Afternoon, "I didn’t like any of the others.”

 

_Chapter 1._

So. After all she'd been through with the Doctor, she was going to die in an ice cave on an alien planet, from cold or blood loss, whichever did her in first.

The thought, when it came to Bill, did not panic her as much as she would have expected. She took a deep breath and decided it was going to be the cold, after all; she was already too numb to register the chill in the air. Curled against the wall of the crevasse she'd fallen into, she placidly rolled up the bloodstained sleeve of her jacket and looked at the gash where she'd scraped her forearm against a sharp corner of ice. Didn't look so bad, really; but it had been enough to stop her climbing back out, though the crevasse couldn't have been much more than a dozen feet deep.

Bill yawned, and wondered what would become of the Doctor. They'd got separated in the sudden snow squall, and she could only hope he'd found a cave with a more even floor than the one she'd chosen. She didn't feel so bad now. Perhaps, after a rest, she could try to climb out again. But rest first. Yes, rest first...

Why'd the people in the next flat have to be so loud? Bill could hear them talking among themselves. Coming home drunk from a party, most like. She pounded her fist against the bedroom wall -- at least, she heard the wall make a thunk noise, though her fist felt nothing.

"Did you hear something?" asked a woman's voice.

"Shut up! Some of us have to work in the morning!" Bill shouted. Instead the voices grew louder:

“Dr. Saroyan -- she's over here."

Three figures were looking down at Bill. Two were women, from their voices, in parkas with deep, fur-lined hoods, but the third was bare-headed, allowing full view of a face with startlingly blue eyes and apparently, no reaction to the cold. Abruptly he jumped down, and knelt beside her.

“Hypothermia, looks like,” he called back up to the women. "No frostbite yet. She’ll pull through if we can get her back to base camp and warm her up.”

Some polite or stubborn impulse moved Bill to protest that she was fine, she didn’t want to be a bother.

“You aren't fine," said the bare-headed man to Bill. His eyes were blue as an old-fashioned computer screen, and he was taking off his parka and wrapping it about her. "You're dying of cold. Now put this on; don't worry about me, I’m an android. I only wear it for the pockets.”

Bill was not sure how she'd got out of the crevasse, but she found herself choking down hot liquid -- someone was feeding her soup from a thermos flask.

"You need to come with us," said a woman's voice in her ear. "No, you can't rest here. I know you want to, but you need to keep moving."

Afterwards, Bill was glad she could remember so little of the the walk to base camp; only that it had seemed to take forever and that her three companions had kept urging her to stay awake. When the fog cleared, she found herself shivering on a couch, despite several blankets piled on top of her. Her hands and feet felt as though they were on fire, but the gash on her arm was still quite numb. Glancing over she saw the blue-eyed android working on her injury with a small silver tool. He glanced up and gave her an inhuman but not unpleasant smile. Behind him a grey-haired man, his round brown face creased with a look of kindly concern, came up with a steaming mug that he held towards Bill.

“Can you hold this one-handed?” the man asked. “You look as though you could do with a cup of tea. Don’t worry, Afters will have your other arm fixed soon enough. He’s had plenty of practice patching me up over the years.”

“Dr. Bannerjee fell out of a thrurl-tree, once," the android commented, returning to his work on Bill's arm. For a moment he reminded her of Nardole, though he could hardly have looked less like the little round man.

“He’ll never let me forget that. It had grown around a crashed space shuttle,” explained Dr. Bannerjee. “I was much younger and more reckless in those days.”

"I had a friend with me -- we got separated in the storm."

"Do you mean the Doctor?" asked Dr. Bannerjee. "Captain Li picked him up near Dig Site Bravo, brought him in shortly before Dr. Saroyan, Lou and Afters came back with you."

"Yes! Yes -- sorry," said Bill, "only that was a better, faster answer than I usually get."

"Arm all fixed," said the android. "Just leave the bandage on for a day and don't put too much strain on it. I'll go find your friend." He rose to his feet, nodded to Dr. Bannerjee, and glided from the room.

Bill took the opportunity to look about at her surroundings. Base camp was cosy, if a bit industrial -- all prefabricated steel walls and insulating foam, but there were a few personal photos taped up alongside mysterious pieces of electronic equipment, and a hand-lettered cardboard sign that read TERRA ECHO UNIVERSITY ARCHEOLOGY DEPARTMENT -- FINDING MISLAID CITIES FOR OVER THREE HUNDRED YEARS.

She arranged herself more comfortably on the couch. Her limbs were beginning to hurt less.

"I've never seen an android like him," she said, truthfully. "You call him 'Afters?'

"His full name's The Golden Afternoon," said Dr. Bannerjee, seating himself on a nearby chair. "We met on Babel -- that's the planet I'm from -- a long time ago, and he's stuck with me ever since. I've never been quite sure why, but from what he's told me and what I've come across in the historical records, he'd been through some pretty hard times. Maybe he prefers the relative peace and quiet of interplanetary archeology." At this there was a sound like a sardonic laugh that tried to turn itself into a polite cough.

"Doctor!" The Doctor was standing in the doorway, with a look of mingled relief and guilt.

"Bill." His voice was quieter than usual. "That was very stupid of me, to lose sight of you like that you like that."

"Whiteouts come up very suddenly here," said Bannerjee. "We've had a close call or two ourselves."

"The whiteout wouldn't have been a problem," snapped the Doctor, "if your Captain hadn't abducted me!"

"She found a stranger examining our dig site when we hadn't had news of any visitors," explained the archeologist. "She thought something dodgy was going on. Dr. Saroyan did take a party to look for your friend as soon as you mentioned her." Bill decided to break this up:

"Wait, wait," she said. "You're from a planet called Babel?"

"That's why I'm the expedition's linguist. Our ancestors were a multilingual human colony, and a year in, the translation devices malfunctioned. The colony still managed to thrive, but an awful lot of our place names reflect early miscommunications. Our people have been committed to language studies ever since. Just in case."

"So what's your expedition all about?" The Doctor opened his mouth and Bill shot him a warning glance.

"This planet began a sudden ice age three hundred years ago, causing the abandonment of a human colony that had just started up. We're here looking for clues to how it all happened. It's really Alma's -- Dr. Saroyan's -- project. Her specialty is archeological botany, and she's got her grad student, Lou, along as well. We'd been hoping to find records, but no joy so far, so Afters and I have been helping out wherever we can. Captain Li's job is to get everyone here and back safely, though she's proven quite handy with a spectroscope -- began her career as a prospector--"

"Careful, Sam, don't talk their ears off. Especially Bill, she's still recovering."

Several women had joined them. The one who'd spoken was small and dark with a dramatic silver streak in her hair. Bill guessed her to be Dr. Alma Saroyan, which would make the handsome but severe-looking middle-aged woman Captain Li; and then Lou the grad student must be the plump fair-haired young woman who looked as though she'd be fun to go pub-crawling with, and handy if a fight broke out too (after their last couple of adventures, Bill found she'd begun to rate women on their probable competence in battle).

Dr. Saroyan's warning had been friendly enough in tone, but given that Li had apparently taken the Doctor prisoner when she first found him, Bill wondered if Dr. Bannerjee really had been on the verge of giving something away.

"Snow's died down," said Capt. Li. "I'm heading back to the ship for the night. Afters is on the roof, recharging," she added to Bannerjee, who translated to their guests:

"She can't get to sleep without the engine humming in the background, and he's mainly solar-powered. Alma's right, Bill, we should let you get some rest. Doctor, have you had supper?"


	2. Chapter 2

"...This section is sheltered by those cliffs – it’s mild enough to dig here, and we think it’s one of the places the colonists could have held out." After supper, Dr. Saroyan seemed to have relaxed enough to talk about the expedition's purpose, and once she got going, proved as eager to talk as Dr. Bannerjee. "So far we’ve turned up some traces of gold and silicate that don’t match anything in the surrounding geology, but no intact microchips as yet. So here we are, sifting for phytoliths and wasting a perfectly good linguist --"

  
“-- not to mention the best android I’ve seen in decades," added the Doctor, giving Afters a fierce but admiring stare. The android had returned from recharging and joined them at the table where a place had been set for him, though there was no coffee in the cup he held and occasionally gestured with. "Seriously -- you are _brilliant_. Most android designers either try to be perfectly realistic, or go all abstract, steer clear of the uncanny valley. But whoever made you jumped right over it. Threw in all kinds of little in-jokes too -- like how you look human, but then you’ve got eyes the same colour -- the exact same colour mind you --as a 21st-century Earth computer’s Blue Screen of Death. Hilarious!”

  
“Don’t you talk to him like –” Dr. Saroyan's face flushed in shock and anger, and Dr. Bannerjee frowned, but Afters raised his hand in a gesture of calm.

  
“No, he’s right. I was meant be funny as well as beautiful.” He tilted his head and a shadow fell across his sculpted face. "I was built as a toy for the President of the Argellian Empire. He used to have me pluck gemstones out of molten lead for the amusement of guests. The joke was on him, though -- turns out I was built much more solidly than his Empire...” Dr. Bannerjee cleared his throat:

  
"You know, in all the excitement of your friend's rescue, I don't think I ever found out what brought the two of you out this way, Doctor."

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"I brought you some supper, if you're hungry." Lou held a tray. "Hope you like huitlacoche stroganoff."

  
"No idea what that is, but it smells gorgeous." Bill sat up and tried a sporkful of the dish. It tasted pretty gorgeous, too. "I'd have thought expedition food would be all freeze-dried protein, that kind of thing."

  
"Most of it is, but the Captain keeps a little hydroponics cabin on her ship. She said we'd be grateful for it when we were a month out from port, and she was right. Amazing how far a little bit of fresh stuff goes to make the rest taste better."

  
"And is is just me or does everyone around here have a degree in banter, yeah?” Lou lowered her voice:

  
"It's a nice change to have someone around who's my age. Everyone else here thinks the Archons of Laos are a geological formation." She laughed.

 

"Can... we just assume I'm a giant nerd who hasn't heard of them?" Lou widened her eyes.  
"Oh, they're brilliant. I'll give you a file of their latest." _Latest song? Latest game?_ Bill wondered, and was relieved when the Doctor put his head around the door and knocked on the wall next to it.

  
"Is the patient rebelling against her nurse yet?" he asked.

  
"Yes." Bill winked at Lou, hoping to take the sting out the remark, and then wondered if winking meant the same thing here. The fair-haired woman stuck out her tongue. _So we're either both kidding around, or we've just agreed to pistols at twenty paces tomorrow._

  
"Er, well I thought I'd drop by, see how you were doing, because... as it turns out something awkward's come up." He stepped into the room, Drs. Saroyan and Bannerjee following him with accusatory expressions. Saroyan, though polite, was evidently Bad Cop:

  
"Doctor, Bill -- I think you two owe us an explanation. According to Captain Li, a ship has just entered our atmosphere. They're not replying to her hail. Friends of yours come to join the party? Or are they your ride?"

"They're nothing to do with me," said the Doctor. "Or with Bill, unless she's been keeping things back."

  
"Hell of a coincidence," said Lou dryly. The Doctor spun to face her.

  
"Did your Captain see any ships in the atmosphere before now?"

  
"No," she admitted. The Doctor looked triumphant.

  
"Then," he said, "are you actually suggesting that we have something to do with a ship that didn't get here until after we did? I mean, time travel is one thing, but that's just... lateness."

  
"Which raises the question -- " Saroyan interrupted. "How _did_ you and Bill get here?"

  
The Doctor's expression was one that Michaelangelo might have worn, had he painted the floor instead of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and suddenly found himself wondering how he was going to get out.

  
"We're bounty hunters!" Bill couldn't believe she'd just said that, but there was nothing to do now but run with it. "Doctor, I know you didn't want to break cover, but Dr. Saroyan's right -- they deserve an explanation." Speechless for once, the Doctor held up the psychic paper as Lou glanced in Bill's direction, her expression seemingly divided between suspicion and awe. Saroyan was examining the apparent warranty.

  
"It doesn't say who you're looking for."

  
"We were in the vicinity on spec," the Doctor said quickly. "And if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you lot a question: everyone here has been acting like they're afraid we'll discover something; and you're archeologists -- _you're_ supposed to be the ones discovering things. So, just what is it you've discovered, that has you so worried?"

  
The archeologists glanced uncomfortably at each other. Finally Dr. Saroyan turned to the Doctor and Bill:

  
"Captain Li, as Sam told you before I cut him off, used to be a prospector. Some of the spectroscopy results rang a bell with her, so with my permission, she ran some further, geological tests, and it seems likely there's enough Bauxite around here to make a mining operation worthwhile." She sighed. "Until two days ago, this dig was purely of interest to scholars. Now it has major ramifications to an aluminium-poor galaxy."

  
"Evidence of a colony here , however short-lived, would help establish a human claim to the planet," the Doctor mused, and Bill realized why the Captain had been so suspicious of the Doctor's presence -- a former prospector, she must have feared claim-jumpers above all else.

  
"Naturally, we don't want to report it until we have more information," said Bannerjee, "and we'd just as soon not have our hand forced."

  
"You say this was two days ago. Any evidence of prior digging?" There was a general shaking of heads. "Then it's all coincidental. This planet's not two days from anywhere. Now, if they're not claim-jumpers, I wonder who those travellers are, who won't respond to Captain Li. I suggest we check in with her again."

Dr. Saroyan looked from the Doctor to Bill and back, and seemed to do some mental equations.

  
"It'd be easier to trust you if you'd told us earlier why you'd come, but then we weren't entirely transparent either. And I can't see any obvious flaws in your suggestion. Lou, guess you'd better go check with Afters -- he's calling Li."

 

" _Bounty hunters?!"_ hissed the Doctor to Bill once Saroyan and Bannerjee had stepped into the hall, no doubt to confer in privacy themselves. Bill folded her arms.

  
"You were going to have to use the psychic paper anyway, once they'd got suspicious, and I wanted you to do it before Afters came back in the room. I wasn't sure it'd work on him. Being an android and all that. Sorry about the bounty hunters bit but it was the first thing I could think of. Oh, another thing -- who are the Archons of Laos?"

"Landscape gardeners."

"Landscape gardeners?"

"Did I say that? I meant the other thing. Comedians. Really funny landscape-gardening comedians."

"You're worried about that ship Captain Li tried to hail, aren't you?"

 


	3. Chapter 3

The spindly beams of the snowmobile's headlights did their best against the dark, and two bundled figures and a bare-headed one clung to the humming machine as its electric motor sped it through the night. When Lou and Afters had been unable to raise Captain Li on the radio, they'd told the others and had decided, with the Doctor, to make a trek to the ship to search for her.

  
The little lemon-pip lights of the spaceship appeared ahead, and Lou slowed the snowmobile and unfastened her goggles.

  
"The motor's not loud, but I'd rather we walk the last leg, just -- just in case." Afters nodded and the Doctor agreed with the plan. As they approached the ship the android asked:

  
"May I have a borrow of your goggles?" He adjusted the elastic and then snapped them over his luminous eyes. The three cautiously moved forward. The Doctor could now see the compact, utilitarian shape and the name _S. S. Glumdalclitch_ painted on the side.

Lou looked up towards a camera above the hatch and waved. The Doctor coo-eed. The hatch opened, and the search party glanced at each other and entered.

  
"Sorry," said a voice that didn't sound the least bit sorry, "no one was aboard, but we thought you wouldn't want us waiting out there in the cold." A tough-looking male human, a fish man, and a spiny, bubblegum-pink woman were standing about the bridge in too-casual poses.

  
"One of you the pilot of this vessel?" asked the human.

  
"I am," said Afters, before anyone else could speak. The human straightened up, swaggered over and shook the android's hand.

  
"I like a man with a firm grip. Guess I'd better explain why we're here -- we landed our police cruiser just down the hill a ways, saw your ship and decided to check matters out. I mean, you've all probably got a good reason for being way out here, but we're looking for some fugitives." He had slightly emphasized the words _good reason._ Lou glanced at the Doctor. Afters looked even more impassive than usual:

"We haven't seen anyone about. Do you have a description of who you're looking for, Inspector --?" The human coughed.

  
"Sergeant Malbec. Show this man the warrant, corporal." The spiny woman in the loose-fitting flight suit sidled up to Afters and handed him a small card.

  
"Not very detailed," he said after examining it. "Mind if we take it back and show our colleagues at base camp? You can come with, of course."

\--------------------------------

"Hear anything yet from the _Glumdalclitch?_ " asked Dr. Bannerjee as Dr. Saroyan re-entered the room. His colleague shook her head glumly.

  
Bill had been recounting her trip with the Doctor to the Frost Fair, which was the adventure that she could most easily retcon into a story about them being bounty hunters. _Most of the time it’s not as exciting as people think,_ she’d said, but the better the story, the fewer the questions she’d have to answer in the Doctor’s absence.

Fortunately (only not, because she was worried about the situation too), her hosts were more concerned with monitoring the radio for any transmissions from the ship.

\--------------------------------

"We came by snowmobile," the Doctor was saying to Malbec. "Did you bring your own transportation? Besides the cruiser, of course."

  
"We have short-haul vehicles back at the cruiser."

  
"We'll wait here a minute and you can follow along then," Lou commented. Malbec turned to his fish-man colleague:

  
"Prab, get the scooter." He glanced back at the Doctor and the others with something of a glint in his eye. _He's thinking, 'You're not going to get us out of the way that easy,'_ reflected the Doctor. But once both machines were making the trip back, the Time Lord decided to risk conversation with his companions, hoping that even with the quiet motor, speed and distance would prevent those on the vehicle behind them from overhearing.

"I expect you're both wondering who to trust," he began--

  
"I don't trust them," said Lou immediately. "something about them feels wrong. Afters?"

  
"Both parties of strangers may be lying, but I like the Doctor and Bill better," the android offered. The Doctor smiled wryly.

  
"Thanks for the trust. And by the way, good work lying to them about being the pilot. They seemed to believe you - if so that  means they didn't find Captain Li. Let's see what we can do to keep their attention off her."

Also," Lou broke in, "good job convincing them you're human."

  
"I take it," said the Doctor to Afters, "that you weren't programmed for strict truthfulness."

  
“I was built as a plaything for a decadent autocrat," said the beautiful android, "of course I can lie. If you _are_ deceiving us, Doctor, you should know that I wasn't programmed for strict non-violence, either."


	4. Chapter 4

Malbec and his two colleagues skimmed along, following the Doctor and the others on their snowmobile.

"From now on I want all my escapes to be in a police vehicle," Prab burbled. "They have the best toys.”

  
“That life-form scanner wasn’t so great," muttered 'Corporal' Azalea, haughtily stoking her head spines. "Got ourselves all excited, snuck up on an empty ship only to find the scanner had been pinged by a roomful of plants. Meantime, why are we bothering with these boffins?"

  
"Because, my sweet," Malbec snapped, "They have to have noticed our ship coming down. We need to see how many of them there are, get'em in one place, and get the jump on them."

  
"The ones ahead of us now are sending a radio message from their vehicle," said Prab.

"Monitor them."

 

The horizon was taking shape against a grey sky.

 

Back at base camp, Bill, Saroyan and Bannerjee had finally dozed off, curled up in chairs around the radio, when the device suddenly awoke with a burst of static:

  
"Doctor to base camp. Shut up and listen," the radio crackled with the Doctor's voice. "Lou, Afters and I are on our way back with some more visitors. Put the kettle on, over and out."

  
"'Shut up and listen?'" Dr. Saroyan did not sound impressed with the communication.

  
"Yeah, that was a bit bolshy, even for him," admitted Bill. "Hang on. I wonder -- was he trying to tell us something? Something he couldn't say in front of the visitors? 'Cos they just be from the ship Captain Li saw on the scanner."

  
"-- and he didn't say anything about Li --" Bannerjee broke in, "so she's not with them, for whatever reason."

  
"And the 'shut up' part?" asked Saroyan.

  
"I think he means not to blurt anything out when they get here. Wait to see how much he and the others have told the visitors," said Bill. Bannerjee rose heavily to his feet.

  
"Guess I'll go put the kettle on," he said.

 

Ten minutes later, the snowmobiles were parked outside the dome. Malbec swaggered in, looking about him, taking in the room.  
"Nice little place you've got here. The Doc tells me you're archeologists? Hadn't realized there was anything here to dig up." The Doctor cleared his throat:

  
"I've been telling Sergeant Malbec that I hope he and his crew have more luck in their search than we've had on our dig. They're looking for some fugitives from justice."

  
"A man and a woman," Malbec added. Holding the kettle, Dr. Bannerjee glanced at Afters, even as Dr. Saroyan eyes met Lou's, and Bill's the Doctor's.

"We let them know none of us had seen anything," Afters stated in his quiet, steady voice. Azalea contemplated him.

  
"Your pilot's still wearing his goggles," she said to Bannerjee and Saroyan. "Something wrong with his eyes? Because that'd be a real drawback." Afters slowly lifted the goggles from his face. The spiny woman whistled. "You've sure got some peeps there! Congratulations folks, your flyboy is the prettiest I've ever seen. Now don't give me that look, fellow, I was just joking to lighten the mood." Malbec glared at her, then turned to Bannerjee:

  
"Well, I guess we'll just have some of that tea you're offering and then get back to our search."  He stepped forward and then, with a sudden swerve, he was training a small black device, undoubtedly a weapon, on Bannerjee and Saroyan. At the same time Azalea locked an arm around the Doctor and drew a similar unpleasant-looking device. "Now, kids," said Malbec to Bill, Lou and Afters, "I know Prab's got his hands full with the three of you, but give him any trouble and your elders get it in the neck, and I'm guessing one of them issues your pay, even if you've got no other reason to care about them."

"So I take it that the warrant is actually for you and Malbec?" The Doctor had some difficulty speaking with Azalea's arm about his windpipe. "How'd you draw Prab into this? He your brother-in-law or something?"

  
"Just a loyal friend," Malbec replied. To Azalea he said "Gag and restrain him. See if there's anyone else lurking about the place." Azalea drew a small globe from her belt and touched it to the Doctor's shoulder. It spread over him in a gelatinous bubble, though Bill could still see his eyes through the shimmering stuff. They would have bored through it if they could.

  
"Can I restrain mine too?" asked the fish-man with enthusiasm. Malbec sighed.

  
"Fine, use your new toy."

Prab, too, reached into a pocket, but he brought out a length of pale green wire and flicked it at his captives like a whip. Bill flinched as it wound around them like a climbing vine, but the memory of a particular scene in a gross-out horror movie she'd watched one rainy afternoon kept her from screaming. She was taking no chances of that wire-vine getting in her mouth.   
Malbec turned to Dr. Bannerjee.

"And now," he said, "I think I'll have that tea."


	5. Chapter 5

"Why don't they just kill us?" The wire-vine hadn't moved in a while, Malbec and Prab had taken Drs. Bannerjee and Saroyan, still under the gun, to another room, and Bill decided she could risk whispering. It's not as though she could do anything else. She felt Lou's shoulder blades squirm against hers.

  
"Don't give them ideas," the other woman warned. “They might still be listening; these wires could be bugged.”

  
"No, but -- what do they want from us? They're on the lam in an armed police ship. Why steal a research vessel? And if they just wanted to eliminate witnesses, they'd have killed us already." She felt Lou sigh, but the wire-vine remained tight around them both.

  
"All I know," Lou said, "is that I'd find it a hell of a lot easier to think if we weren't trussed up. Afters, any chance of you working loose?"

  
"I'm only human," Afters replied. _That's right,_ thought Bill. _We've got two things going for us. They don't know he's an android, and they don't know Captain Li exists. Hard to plan anything around those if we can't talk, though._  
Reflexively, she glanced at the Doctor, still trapped inside the gel. She hoped he was just biding his time.

A heavy thud from the next room — Bill would have gasped if her rib cage hadn’t been constricted. The sickening silence that followed was broken by the sound, like plucked cello strings, of Afters ripping himself free of the wire-vines. Even knowing what the android was, she was shocked by the ease with which he pulled free of the tendrils. Moments later he was out the door, with Bill and Lou wriggling free and following close behind.

“Afters!” Saroyan held Malbec’s weapon. “I nearly shot you when you ran in like that,” she hissed.

“So the drugged tea worked, yeah?” Bill asked Dr. Bannerjee.

  
“Took long enough, but he finally passed out. I did say it’d be hard to calculate a dose without knowing who was coming, or what species. Afters, old man, they thought you were human?”

  
“They seemed to fall for it. Why are you looking at me so intently?”

  
“Trying to imagine how they see you.”

  
“Don’t let’s congratulate ourselves yet,” whispered Dr. Saroyan. “That woman’s still skulking about the place somewhere, and if the rest of you heard these two hit the floor, chances are she did too.”

The conversation fell silent, until Bill whispered:

  
“Can we try and get the Doctor out of that jelly thing, though?”

  
A few minutes later, with the two unconscious men trussed up with rope from the camp stores, and Dr. Saroyan keeping watch with Malbec’s weapon, Bill and the others stood appraising the Doctor’s gelatinous prison. Bill gave the exterior a tentative prod. It wobbled, but the outer skin was tough as leather.

“Like day-old custard,” she said. “Doctor, can you hear me in there?” She thought she saw him grimace, but it might have been image distortion from seeing him through jelly.

  
“Have you ever seen anything like it, Afters?” Dr. Bannerjee asked. The android shook his sleek head:

  
“I’ve seen weapons and restraints in my time, but they were all more... old-fashioned,” he said. “If they took this from a law enforcement vehicle, though, it was probably designed to restrain but not harm a prisoner, and to be easily removed by others.”

  
“Could we just try cutting it open?” Lou asked. Afters brushed his hand lightly over the skin of the jelly.

  
“There’s a scalpel in the medical kit which might work on a pseudo-organic like this.” Bill picked up the box which still sat by the couch upon which she’d slept earlier and handed it to him. Carefully, he made a long slit down the front of the gelatine capsule, taking care only to cut a to a millimetre in depth. Then he pressed delicately on one side of the cut. The surface tension broke, and a surprising quantity of antiseptic-smelling liquid gushed forth. The four of them peeled back the transparent skin and the Doctor, coughing and wet, staggered out of his prison.

 

“So, do we send a distress call?” asked Bill, when the Doctor had been brought up to speed. The antiseptic liquid, fortunately, had evaporated within a few seconds of contact with the air.

  
“Captain Li wouldn’t like it,” replied Lou, hesitantly. “And she is in command, as far as the ship’s concerned.”

  
“We don’t know where she is at the moment,” said Dr. Saroyan. “I certainly hope she’s still alive, but I think for the moment we can agree she’s absent. Which makes it my call, as head of the expedition.” She looked at Malbec and Prab, still unconscious. “We can’t keep them tied up for the rest of the dig; and the third one is still on the loose. I think we’re going to have to contact the authorities.”


	6. Chapter 6

A distress call had been set to repeat. Dr. Saroyan looked at the group around the radio.

  
“I don’t know how long it will be till we get a response. We still don’t even know what these people wanted here.” The Doctor raised his hand like an eager student:

  
“It looks from the warrant as though Azalea and Malbec were under arrest for trafficking and extortion, when they escaped with Prab’s assistance. My best guess is that they were looking for a place to lie low for a while, thought this planet was uninhabited, and panicked when they came across us. I don’t think they had any grand plan in coming here. Mind you, it’d help if we could get a look at their ship’s records.”

  
“No,” said Dr. Saroyan firmly. “No splitting up. Azelea’s just one person, but given the company she turned up in, I think we’d better assume she’s more dangerous than most.”

  
“And the Captain?” Lou asked.

  
“Li seems to have eluded our attackers. We’ll just have to trust her to contact us when she’s ready. Meanwhile, I expect we’re all right as long as we’ve got Azelea outnumbered, but if we start splitting up to go search, we’re vulnerable.”

  
“She’s got a point, Doctor,” Bill said. “Mind you — is there any damage she can do while we’re holed up together?”

  
“Well, there’s our ship,” mused Saroyan, “but she’s already got one of her own, and she can’t fly off in two ships by herself. I suppose she might damage ours out of spite, but if I were her, I’d be more focused on trying to rescue her companions.”

  
“Assuming she cares enough to bother,” Lou muttered.

  
“So we’re going to have to guard them,” said Dr. Bannerjee, “and right now, only Afters is doing that.” The Doctor raised his hand again:

  
“May I suggest that three people stay in this room — one to monitor the radio and two to guard the door; and three in the other room to guard the two prisoners. If we need anything from another part of the camp, a pair – one from each room – goes to fetch it.”

  
“Why two rooms at all?”

  
“So she can’t just lock the door on all of us at once. If she doesn’t care so much about rescuing her friends.” Everyone looked hastily around, and nodded. Dr. Saroyan sighed.

  
“All right, I guess we can afford to split into two groups of three. How do we want to do it?”

  
“Boys in one room, girls in the other?” Lou winked at Dr. Bannerjee.”Afters can protect you two, we’ll be ok.”

  
“Fine by me,” said Saroyan briskly. “We can switch around later if we get sick of our own gender.”

  
_And the banter just keeps on… keeping on…_ Bill thought. _Even in the future, everyone’s still basically twelve years old._

 

* * *

 

  
Afters and Bannerjee lifted the prisoners to two of the couches; Bannerjee took a seat by the couch Bill had lain on, and waved to the Doctor to take another one nearby. Afters pulled up a chair to face the doorway, and seated himself in a casual, but attentive posture.

 

* * *

 

  
In the other room, Bill, Lou, and Dr. Saroyan were gathered by the radio. Lou, like Afters, had seated herself to watch the door; her face wore a steelier expression than Bill had heretofore seen on her, and Bill again thought to herself that the big girl could probably hold her own in a fight, even if she weren’t also holding the weapon Dr. Saroyan had taken off Malbec.

  
“Shall I put on some non-drugged tea?” Saroyan asked. “We never did have breakfast.” She crossed the room to the little stove.” After a moment Bill followed her.

  
“Need a hand?”

  
“Thanks, just pop these in the microwave for ninety seconds.” The older woman handed her a handful of foil-wrapped tablets. “I can handle the tea.” Bill looked at the microwave and felt grateful the TARDIS’ translation field worked on control buttons too.

  
“Ninety seconds each, or do I put them all in together?”

  
“All together.” Dr. Saroyan handed Bill a large plate and a pair of tongs. A minute-and-a-half later, the foil-wrapped things were doubled in size, piping hot, and smelled surprisingly palatable.

  
“Oh you loves. I’m starving,” yawned Lou, unwrapping one. Bill still wasn’t sure what kind of food it was — near as she could tell, it was either baked potato or some kind of bun — but it was breakfast-y, and her stomach was empty.

  
“Once the tea’s ready, we should let them know in the next room,” said Dr. Saroyan. “Should have done this before Sam and the Doctor left, I suppose. By the way, Bill, is your arm feeling any better?”

 

* * *

 

“So, Afters — you’ve led an interesting life, I take it.”

  
“As have you, Doctor.”

  
“Eh?”

  
“I’m told that bounty hunter is an exciting career.”

  
“Oh that, yes.”

  
“I’ve never tried it myself. I did serve on a pirate vessel for a while, but I doubt there are still any prices on my head.” The Time Lord glanced at Dr. Bannerjee, who was trying not to smile indulgently at his android companion. Eventually the historian gave up and, muttering something about needing to check the prisoners, went to the other side of the room where he cautiously took Malbec’s pulse, then Prab’s.

  
“I think they’ll sleep for another hour at least,” he said, returning to his seat.

 

* * *

 

“As I told the Doctor last night, we’ve found some phytoliths—“

  
“Silicate structures from within plants,” Lou interrupted Dr. Saroyan. “Sort of like fossils only not, is the fastest way I can explain it.”

  
“We’re hoping to use them to identify the plants that grew at the site in the past.”

  
“And then we’ve found some other silicates that don’t match the local geology — even the remains of two fried microchips. Still, we’d rather have something readable.”

  
“What would be... a smoking gun?” Bill asked. “I mean, what would be hard evidence for a human settlement?”

  
“Well, records saying ‘this was a human settlement’ would be best. Alternately, artifacts that would only have been used by humans. A spoon for instance – other species who might have come this way have vastly different mouthparts, so they use different utensils.”

 

* * *

  
“...and that was another reason Alma asked us to join her team,” Dr. Bannerjee said. “Afters is personally familiar with the dialects that humans on this arm of the galaxy would have spoken at the time. But I’m afraid we haven’t yet found anything well-preserved we can work on.”

  
“What have you found, and what sort of conditions caused it to degrade — did you hear that?”

  
“No,” Dr. Bannerjee began, but Afters tilted his head and, after listening a moment, said:

  
“It’s a ship’s engine. In fact, it sounds like ours.”


	7. Chapter 7

The sound of the engine grew louder until it was a roar.

  
“Is – is she hovering directly over us?” Dr. Bannerjee’s tone was a mix of admiration and disbelief. Over the sound they could make out a pounding on the hallway wall, and then Lou appeared in the doorway.

  
“Captain Li’s on the radio,” she shouted. “We’re trying to convince her we’ve already got things under control here and that she doesn’t need to flatten the dome.”

  
At the other end of the room, the prisoners were beginning to stir, despite their drugged state. Prab was making piscine faces of protest at the noise.

  
“Afters—“ called the Doctor, in a warning tone, but the android was already looking towards the two criminals, and Malbec was scowling back in acknowledgement that he was not unobserved. Outside, the _Glumdalclitch’s_ engine lowered in pitch; evidently Dr. Saroyan had managed to convince Captain Li that an attack on the base was not currently required. “Since these two are awake,” sighed the Time Lord, “and the Captain is no longer missing, perhaps we’d all better reunite by the radio.”

A half-hour later, a minor victory breakfast was being celebrated. Afters was standing guard by the door — after all, Azalea was still a wild card — but Prab and Malbec’s gags had been removed, and their bonds loosened enough to permit them to eat, under the close supervision of Bill and Lou. Lou had refused to let Prab have a spork.

  
“You don’t need one anyway, not for a yam bun. And you’re only getting lukewarm tea.”

  
“I don’t want tea at all, your boss over there might have drugged it again.”

 

* * *

 

Captain Li was telling her story:  
“… the outside camera saw them coming, but I didn’t have time to get out of the ship, so I grabbed an oxygen tank and submerged myself in part of the hydroponic set up.”

  
“Good choice. They had a life-signs detector, but the plants covered yours.”

  
“I didn’t even know that.” Li shuddered. “I went through half my breathing tank before I felt safe coming out. By then they’d left with you, so I changed into some dry clothes and trailed you all here. When no one was coming back out I assumed the worst.”

  
“So we noticed,” said the Doctor dryly.

  
“This sort of situation may be business as usual to you, Doctor,” the Captain replied, a bit sharply, “but I take any threat to my passengers very seriously.” Dr. Bannerjee interrupted with a polite cough:

  
“What do we do now, though?” he asked in a low voice. “We’ve still got two people we’re really not qualified to keep prisoner, a third one on the loose, and not enough additional room on the ship to take any of them with us. What are the chances of getting a response anytime soon to our distress call?”

  
“Which I’m still not happy you sent in the first place—“

  
There was a crackle from the radio.

Everyone stopped speaking or eating.

“This is Lootenant Ectah of Omega Division,” crackled an American-accented voice. “We receive your distress call. What is your position? Over.” Dr. Saroyan picked up the microphone and was about to hit the button to reply, when another voice came through the static:

  
“Thank the gods you heard my distress call,” gasped the feminine voice. Malbec began to chuckle unpleasantly.

  
“That’s my girl,” he said. Dr. Saroyan stared at him, then frantically hit the radio button, trying to break in on Azalea as she tearfully gave the galactic police her ground coordinates. “Don’t even bother,” Malbec told her, “she’s jamming your signal. And by now she’ll have tweaked that arrest warrant to be for — how many of there are you?”

  
“But we’ve got identity documents, a dig permit —“ Malbec snickered:

  
“You obviously don’t know your Omega division. Most trigger-happy cops in five systems, and Azalea will prime them to come in here with blasters on continuous fire.”

  
“Yeah,” snapped Bill, “and how’s that going to work out for _you_ , then?” She had the satisfaction of seeing Malbec look caught, for a moment, before he shrugged defiantly and said:

  
“Azzy’ll think of something.”

 

* * *

 

“So what if we come out as the cops approach, as a sign of good faith?” asked Dr. Saroyan. (Malbec and Prab were bound and gagged again so they couldn’t interrupt the discussion of what to do next.) Lou shook her head:

  
“I’ve been monitoring the radio transmissions. Azalea’s really been playing up to them. I mean, if I didn’t know any better, _I’d_ believe her story.”

  
“Believe me, they don’t know any better,” said Captain Li.

  
“But if we flee, that’ll just convince them we’re guilty,” Bill argued.

  
“And what if they’re already convinced?” Bill fell silent at that, and felt her jaw clench.

  
“What if,” Afters suggested, “I come out alone, and talk to them? I’m harder to damage than the rest of you.” At this, Malbec’s eyes narrowed, but everyone was busy listening to the android.

  
“What kind of weapons do they have?”Dr. Bannerjee interrupted. “Afters, oId man, I know you’re resilient, but even you must have some limits.” The Golden Afternoon shrugged gracefully:

  
“I doubt I could take a direct hit from a proton canon, but if they take me for a human, they’re unlikely to _begin_ with one. And with any luck I can talk them down before things get that far.”

  
“I don’t like it,” said the Doctor slowly, “but Afters’ suggestion is the closest thing to a plan we’ve heard yet.”

* * *

 

  
A buzzing sound like a giant wasp, nothing like the comparatively friendly roar of the Glumdalclitch, began to grow in volume; and a steel-blue ship hove into view over the nearby hills. She looked like a wasp too. _**Obviously**_   _the police,_ thought Bill. The Doctor plucked her by the sleeve:

  
“Out of sight,” he said. “It’s up to Afters now.”

Afters stood about twenty paces in front of the camp’s main dome, looking up at the police ship and waving. He’d been built the same height as an average-size human, but at the moment Bill thought he looked very small. _Perhaps it’s just as well_ , she thought. _The less intimidating, the better._ She tried not to dwell on that argument. She suspected it wouldn’t hold up in the face of “the most trigger-happy cops in five systems.”


	8. Chapter 8

The police ship landed, lightly enough, yet with the feel of a blow being struck. Afters did not move, and stood with his back to the dome and his impassive face towards the ship as its engines powered down.

  
“PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR” came a voice over the ship’s loudspeaker. The android put his hands in the air and waited.  
After about a minute, a door in the hull slid open, and a couple of armed and uniformed figures peered out suspiciously at the surrounding area. Though visors hid their faces, Bill could see that they weren’t exactly human, nor, she guessed, even mammalian.

  
Following another pause, the two officers descended from the ship and approached Afters, weapons drawn. He waited patiently; they were close enough to speak to him, now close enough for one to cuff his hands with a wire-vine like the one Bill had experienced earlier. _Well_ , she thought, _at least he can get out of that any time he needs to_. The other officer turned back to the ship and beckoned. A third officer came forth, with an arm thrown protectively around Azalea. The pink woman was wrapped in a fluffy blanket — _to ward off shock_ , Bill thought irritably. Azalea was taking great care to walk timidly, pausing every few steps to dab at her eyes, but her hand gripped the officer’s arm like a steel claw.

  
Afters was saying something to the officer who’d bound his hands; who now turned and spoke to the officer approaching with Azalea, before reaching into the breast-pocket of the android’s coat and withdrawing a folded document. The three officers examined it, conferred briefly among themselves, and then the one who’d brought Azalea from the ship shouted:

“All right, the rest of you will come out now, if you know what’s good for you! Bring any prisoners you’ve got.”

  
“That’s our cue to stay put,” whispered the Doctor, rather unnecessarily, as Bill had been there for the planning session just as he had. The archeology team, meanwhile, was approaching round the side of the dome, Malbec and Prab in tow. Bill could see one of the officers counting them as they came into view, and checking against the paper taken from Afters. The Doctor was fiddling with his sonic screwdriver. “From what he told me,” he muttered, “I think I can tap into Afters’ ears, pick up the conversation so we don’t have to guess at what’s happening.”

  
“Just don’t crank the volume,” Bill whispered. “The last thing we want now is for the cops to notice an echo.”

The glowing screwdriver gave a low whirr, a worrying near-squeal, and then they could hear Afters’ soft voice as easily as if they were standing with the group out front of the dome:

  
“...was just telling these officers that we were the ones attacked,” he said, adding “I also showed them our expedition permit.”

  
“What about the other two?” broke in one officer impatiently. He was the one who’d restrained Afters’s hands.

  
“As you can see from our documents,” replied the android, “we are the only members of the expedition.”

  
“That’s another place where your story doesn’t match up with the one this witness gave Sergeant Aika.”

“Perhaps,” said Dr. Bannerjee, who with the others had come close enough by this time to join the conversation, “your witness is referring to the two travellers who had stopped by our dig when she and her confederates attacked us. They’ve since fled, I’m afraid.” Over the transmission, the Doctor and Bill heard the police officer give the sigh of one who realizes that no part of today is going to go smoothly; at a distance, they saw him lift the visor on his helmet, revealing a long face with bottle-green scales, though his accent, when he spoke, remained pure American. He turned to Bannerjee and Saroyan:

“We’ve got what we call an impasse. This lady claims she was part of the archeology team digging here, and that you showed up impersonating police officers, attacked them and killed or captured the others.”

  
“Question us about the dig,” said Dr. Saroyan. “We can prove we know more about it than she does.”

  
“That might work, if any of us were archeology experts enough to to judge your answers.”

  
Azelea, still clinging to Sgt. Aika, whispered:

”Might I make a suggestion?” Lt. Ectah nodded and she fumbled and hesitated for a moment. If she had been physically capable of blushing, she’d have added it to the performance as well. At last she spoke: “I’ve heard that police ships carry... um... mind-reading equipment? You could test which of us is telling the truth? I mean (here she wrung her hands), _I’d_ be willing to let you... scan me, just so you’d know I’ve got nothing to...” She hid her face in her hands and gave a sob.

  
The sonic screwdriver, and Afters’ ears, were sensitive enough that Bill could hear Lou mutter

“why that little drama-queen—“ but the Lieutenant must have missed this, for he did not react to the grad student’s words. He looked at Azelea, then at Bannerjee, and ran a thumb-claw thoughtfully along his jawline.

  
“This teammate of yours,” he asked, jerking the claw in Afters’ direction, “He been with you a long time?”

  
“Forty years,” said Dr. Bannerjee.

“He can’t be that old, Lieut,” said the cop-lizard who wasn’t Sgt. Aika. “Humans usually wrinkle up—“ but Malbec, next to Lou, cut him off:

  
“He’s not human. I heard them say he’s an android.”

“You saying he’s plastic?” 

“I’m saying,” Malbec retorted, “that however fresh-faced he looks, that boy’s synthetic.”

“Don’t interrupt,” snapped Lt. Ectah. “Any of you, Corporal. _Are_ you an android?” he asked Afters.

  
“I am. You’ll find my file confirms it, if you scroll down.”

  
“Lucky you. Androids are difficult to read. Or maybe not so lucky for you.” Ectah prodded Dr. Bannerjee, who was the human standing nearest. “We could always try the machine on someone else from your side.” After’s expression remained frozen, but Bannerjee shot him a warning glance just the same. “So I guess you weren’t kidding when you said you’d known him for forty years,” the Lieutenant said to him. “Doesn’t it bother you to look at him not getting any older?”

  
“No.” Said the historian. “No, if anything I find it comforting that he’s always going to be around.”

  
“And you, android — how d’you like it that he’s _not_ going to always be around?”

  
“What is this?” Dr. Saroyan interrupted, and the corporal caught her arm.

  
“I SAID, no interruptions,” said Ectah. “We do, as it happens, have a mind scan. As it also happens, in cases like this, its value lies just as much in being a deterrent against lying, or failing to cooperate. You see it’s physically quite painful to the person being scanned. Now, Azalea’s already volunteered for the procedure, and it seems of the five of you, one can block the reading —if he wishes. So the question before us now is whether the android’s going to cooperate, or whether we’re going to have to scan somebody else. I’ve seen him glance at you, Dr. Bannerjee, three times since this conversation started, and from what you say he’s known you the longest. Are you the human he has the strongest bond with?”

  
“I believe I am,” replied Bannerjee. “And I believe this counts as unduly harsh methods with witnesses.”

  
“Not witnesses,” said Lt. Ectah. “Suspects.”


	9. Chapter 9

Bill’s feet were getting numb from the cold. Lt. Ectah and his sergeant had escorted Azalea, Malbec, Dr. Bannerjee and Afters into his ship, leaving the corporal to take the rest back into the vestibule dome, where he stood guard over them, sheltered slightly from the wind, but with the door still open — perhaps in case of a signal from the ship. Prab hadn’t looked too happy about being separated from his confederates. The Doctor still insisted on keeping under cover, and she suspected he was trying to think of a plan, or at least decide which group to address first.

This was correct. More specifically, the Doctor was wondering how long Dr. Bannerjee could take the mind scan if, as seemed likely, Ectah decided to use it on him first. It was not easy, of course, to judge someone he’d only known for a day, but the historian had struck him as fairly sturdy—as a human who’d spent forty years travelling the galaxy, even in the company of a faithful android, would have to be — still, with Azalea’s encouragement, who knew to what extremes the lieutenant might subject him...

 

* * *

 

 

On the ship, Dr. Bannerjee’s eyes were open, but saw nothing, their pupils wide-open at the cabin ceiling. His round face had lost its expression and his body gone horribly limp and flat the moment the mind scan was switched on. Even Azalea’s spines had twitched at the sight, and she had set her mouth in a hard line, as though trying not to respond.

Afters stood immobile, though no one was restraining him; his eyes were fixed on the human body that lay under the device.

“What is this supposed to prove?” he asked tonelessly. “You saw his innocence the moment you plugged him in. Free him and try the next person, if you’re still unsure who’s telling the truth here.”

“Is it possible you know more than he does?”

“About these people who attacked our expedition? He, I and every member of the team were here and saw the same thing. Why don’t you try questioning the other side for a change?”

Sergeant Aika made a move towards Bannerjee, but his commander raised a forbidding claw:

“Wait for my order, Sergeant. According to the warrant, these fugitives are trained in hiding their thoughts from surface technological probing. One of them is a mastermind, responsible for multiple extortion schemes and cult activities; and this robot—"

“Android.”

“This machine is programmed to obey him and to do anything to protect his life.”

“Well, _that_ part’s not so far off,” Afters muttered.

 

* * *

 

“Bill.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going into that police ship. You keep a eye on the dome, but don’t step in unless it’s life-or-death. They’ll take the excuse.”

“I know. Doctor — you said if we show ourselves, those police lizards could say our friends lied about us not being here. What are you going to say if they see you on the ship?”

“Well, if they’re scanning anyone in there, they know about us anyway. No longer any point in not acting.”

And he was off before she could say anything back.

 

* * *

 

Afters was deadly calm. Bannerjee was unconscious. It was their captors who had begun to argue.

 

“Why have you followed that particular human for so long?” Sgt. Aika demanded of the android. “He own you, or something?”

“Shut up, Sarge,” growled Lt. Ectah, adding to himself “We’re supposed to be counting on the android’s loyalty to pressure him – don’t tell him he _shouldn’t_ care about the boffin.”

“I thought we were trying to break them down by breaking them up,” whispered his subordinate.

“Is any of this even going to work on an emotionless being?” Azalea asked.

Afters looked puzzled, as if Azalea had just asked why he sat on a fish when he was plainly sitting on a chair; or perhaps it was just his usual neutral expression.

“You are yourself beautiful,” he said, addressing her with grave courtesy as though they were both attending some state ceremony, “and so perhaps you understand how little one prizes what one already has in abundance, and how one admires most the abilities one does not possess.” Azalea smiled, though it was a tight, hard smile, and threw a glance at Malbec, who replied:

“He’s programmed to care, even if he doesn’t really,” said Malbec. Afters shook his head slightly.

“I don’t presume to think my internal workings are the same as human emotions. I value Dr. Bannerjee very highly. He... has enthusiasm for things. I haven’t yet learned how to do it myself, but I like seeing it in him.” His voice grew somehow colder: “I would like to continue seeing it in him.”

“I am the one conducting this session,” Ectah interrupted, “Now quiet – ALL of you.” He clasped his claws behind his back and glared at them all, his neck-frill flaring slightly over the collar of his uniform.

 

* * *

 

 

The Doctor flattened himself against the side of the ship, but the door had opened soundlessly at a touch of the sonic screwdriver, and none of the occupants seemed to notice him enter.

 

* * *

 

 

“Sergeant,” Ectah asked, “Have we seen any evidence in this human’s thoughts of his having knowingly committed a crime?” The sergeant squinted at the data on a screen connected to the scanning device.

“None,” he said eventually, “Except – well, he’s hiding _something_. There’s evidence of recent mental activity associated with trying to keep a secret.” His commander sighed, deflating his neck-frill.

“Well, if we’re not going to get anymore out of him, we’re unlikely to get anything from the android. Try the woman – let’s check her story.”

“NO!” Azalea shrieked, diving at Sergeant Aika with her spines fully extended. There were sharp spines on her wrists that had not been visible before, and the reptilian officer lurched against the controls with a trickle of blood along his jaw.

In a single move, Afters stepped forward, snapping the wire vines and, almost casually, took Azalea by the arm. She hissed and swiped at him, but her spines left no scratches on his face, nor could she break loose from his grip. Malbec, with a wild look, moved towards them and was seized by Lt. Ectah, who dropped him to the floor with a single blow.

“Looks like the scan won’t be necessary after all,” he said wryly. “Their actions speak for themselves.” He turned to Afters. “Can you carry her back to the dome, son? I’ve got this one.” On the control screen for the mind-scan device, the following words appeared and went unnoticed:

 

DEEP (98% ACCURACY) SCAN INITIATED.

 **CAUTION** – THIS LEVEL UNSAFE FOR NEUROTRANSMITTER-BASED MINDS.


	10. Chapter 10

Bill hadn’t had much practice reading non-human facial expressions (except for cats and dogs, of course, and also a particular tropical fish that had once belonged to her friend Kate); but she could swear the corporal looked bored. He might well be: his prisoners certainly looked bored, including Prab, who was beginning to remind Bill of Kate’s fish. She certainly was bored, and also cold, but she couldn’t think of an excuse to interrupt that wouldn’t make matters worse for everyone.

  
Dr. Saroyan, Lou and Captain Li were talking worriedly amongst themselves:

  
“If those officers put Bannerjee in the mindscan machine,” Captain Li asked, “will they just get answers to direct questions, or are they likely to see everything he knows?”

  
“Legally,” Saroyan replied, “I should imagine the scan has to be pretty narrowly focussed; but you saw how much concern they show for the law.”

  
"It's only a small chance they'd notice the sensitive information," Li continued her train of thought, "but it's one I'd rather not —“ Lou broke in:

  
“Oh how can you just worry about information, instead of what Dr. Bannerjee is suffering?!” Dr. Saroyan reached up to pat her student’s shoulder.

  
“To be honest,” she said, “My real worry is what Afters might do if they harm Sam. The first time I ever saw the two of them was on a transport ship evacuating civilians from Terra Oscar after the Manichean Incident; Afters was powered-down after days of hiding in the caves and Sam was desperately trying to convince an officer that he wasn't a human corpse to be disposed of.” All fell silent.

  
“Later, after I’d got to know them a little better, Afters told me some things about his past.” She shuddered. “But when he talked about Sam, he’d smile — with those perfect teeth that have never been used for anything, except maybe dental fricatives — and he’d just say that the day they met, Sam had been too busy looking around at everything to notice his left boot was worn out; as though that explained all the years he’s followed him since.”

  
“Maybe it does,” said Lou. “He was built as a service droid, originally, even if he’s a very high-end one. Though it’s awful to think his programming still compels him to do that.”

  
“Less awful,” said Captain Li, “if he gets to pick _who_ he wants to serve. That’s more freedom than most humans — they’re coming out now.”

* * *

  
The two reptilian law officers (Sgt. Aika’s face still with a stain of dark-blue blood from his scratch) and the android were walking towards the dome with a struggling Azalea and a resigned-looking Malbec in tow.

  
“Corporal!” Ectah barked across the distance. “Leave those prisoners and come help us with these two. The lady showed her hand.”

  
The guard started forward and at that moment, Prab started to run.

  
“Hey!” yelled Lou, startled. She had made a grab at him when he’d first jumped to his feet, but not soon enough. Ectah let go of Malthus and fired two shots at the fugitive. One hit the top of a snowdrift perilously close to where Bill was hiding. The other hit Prab, and he wasn’t there anymore. Bill thought for a moment she might be going to be sick.

  
Ectah holstered his weapon and gestured at Sgt. Aika to take charge of Malthus. The human hadn’t moved; he was staring in the direction Prab had run. Azalea snarled again at the Sergeant as he seized her boyfriend, but she couldn’t break Afters’ grip.

  
Dr. Saroyan and Lou were holding each other in shock, and Capt. Li’s eyes were blazing almost as fiercely as Azalea’s, but the former prospector held her tongue as Ectah approached.

  
“My apologies to you folks. We know who the bad guys are now.”

  
“Are we free to move about then? And where’s my colleague?”

  
“He’s in the the ship.” Ectah turned to Afters. “All right pal, you can quit glaring at me and go get your human. We can handle this one.” He nodded at Azalea as Aika, with an expression of some relish, deployed one of the jelly prisons the pink woman had used earlier on the Doctor.

  
The android darted for the police ship as though it was on fire.

* * *

  
Bill pulled her parka tighter against the cold. She had recovered her composure by this time, and had watched the police officers’ restraint of Azalea and Malbec, the freeing of the others, and Afters’ dash for the ship with a mix of relief for her friends’ safety and disappointment that she was going to have to keep hiding in order to protect the tenuous calm that now reigned. Ectah hadn’t mentioned the Doctor, which suggested they had neither seen him nor got much out of the mindscan.

* * *

  
“I’m sorry, Afters.” The Doctor looked up as the android entered the dim cabin of the police ship. He’d switched off the machine, and had the ship’s first-aid kit open beside Dr. Bannerjee’s inert form. “The machine went too high — it’s got his whole mind uploaded now, and I can’t put it back in his body. The physical damage —“ Afters' face kept its neutral expression, but he shrugged off his coat with a haste that nearly ripped one sleeve:

  
“Put him in me then.”

  
"I can't just--"

  
"I'm built for it," the android interrupted. "The Imperial President was going to put his mind into my body, he just kept deferring until it was too late.” He laid himself down on another of the couches and began putting on the head clamp . “He used to tell me a story, an old story from Earth, he said, about a man named Dorian Gray. He said that one day, he would make that story come true.” 

  
“Do you think Dr. Bannerjee'd want you to sacrifice yourself?” the Doctor asked.

  
“I’ve been around for three hundred and seventy-three cycles, time someone else had a go.”

  
The beginnings of an idea began to light the Doctor’s eyes.

  
“Yes! Yes! Three hundred and seventy-three cycles-- you were built to last, weren’t you? Tell me, Afters -- how much memory space have you got?”

The android paused and lifted the head clamp’s visor.

  
“Eleventy googleplex. You think there’s room for him and me both?” The Doctor ran to the console and checked Bannerjee’s files with a groan:

  
“Maybe. Bit of a tight fit.” He glanced at the form on the couch. “Why’d you have to be so clever, Bannerjee? There’s more stuff in here than most humans manage to accumulate in a hundred years, never mind sixty-four.”

  
“I’m deleting the Twenty-Cycle War from my memory,” said Afters, his eyes shut in concentration. “It wasn’t that interesting anyway.”


	11. Chapter 11

“What’s keeping that android? He should have been back with your colleague by now. Corporal!” Corporal Artek snapped to attention and hastened over to his commanding officer, who directed him towards the ship before turning his attention back to Dr. Saroyan.

  
“Now that you’ve captured your fugitives, I don’t see how you’ve any right to hold Dr. Bannerjee. I say if you don’t produce him alive and —“

  
“Now stand down, ma’am, I’ve just dispatched Artek to get him.”

 

* * *

 

The Doctor was powering down the scanning machine, too intent to notice anything but it and the two forms that lay on the adjoining couches, until a voice behind him stated:

  
“Hands in the air.” The Doctor complied. “Now turn around slowly.” He rotated shufflingly to face the Corporal.  
Keeping his weapon trained on the doctor, Corporal Artek gingerly touched Dr. Bannerjee’s unmoving chest, then Afters' body. He turned to the Doctor. “You’re in big trouble, Pops.”

  
“I was trying to save them – wait, ‘Pops?!’” spluttered the Doctor. “I can deal with lizards spouting hard ‘r’s, but—”

  
“Can the chatter.” Artek jabbed his weapon in the Doctor’s direction. “You’re coming with me.”

 

* * *

 

From her hiding place, Bill had seen Dr. Saroyan speaking with Lt. Ectah, and the Corporal dispatched to the ship. Now she watched — watched and waited — as the officer returned with the Doctor at weapon-point.

She saw him speak to his commander, and Ectah in turn confront Dr. Saroyan and the others; then all were taken into the dome under the guard of the three police officers.

The dome did not immediately close behind them, and this time, she yielded to impulse and, dashing up to the wall and glancing in to see no one was looking back, she slipped in before the doors slid shut.

* * *

 

“Well, this case is getting too complex for me,” said Ectah to his men. “The pink one claims the others are the criminals, then attacks us; meanwhile the others say they were the only ones here, and we find a stranger standing over the bodies of two of their crew. Better go back to the ship and radio HQ, Sergeant.”

* * *

  
“You WHAT?!” Captain Li looked ready to seize the Time Lord by the throat.

  
“Shh!” The Doctor waved his hands in frustration, then stopped himself as if this gesture, too, might be too noisy. “Do you want the guards to hear us talking! They wouldn’t believe I was trying to help, they’re just going to have to keep thinking Bannerjee and Afters are dead for now.”

  
“From what you’ve just told us,” Dr. Saroyan whispered, “I don’t see how they’re not.”

  
“Bannerjee’s consciousness was preserved as an imprint in the machine, and – do you hear something?” A low squeaking noise was indeed coming from the door. The Doctor started to inch towards it, then froze as it fell outward. There was a faint _oof!_  sound as someone on the other side caught it and then Bill appeared, lowering the heavy metal slab to the hallway floor. Lou hurried forward to help her.

  
"Bill!”

  
“Who needs a sonic screwdriver when you’ve got – well, a regular screwdriver.” Bill held up the tool she’d picked up from one of the dome’s storage cubicles. “Took the hinges right off.”

 

* * *

  
Sergeant Aika scanned the interior of the police vessel, but the figure sitting up on the couch was making no effort to hide. He was looking at his hands as though he’d never seen them before. He looked up and his blue eyes met the officer's gaze without concern.

  
"Oh, hello there," he said amicably. "Tell me, have you ever woken up feeling like a new man?" Aika was having none of it.

  
"Hands in the air!" he barked.

  
"They already are."

  
"Well, raise them higher, then." The man shrugged and complied.

  
"What about that fellow on the other couch?" Artek gave a curt nod towards Dr. Bannerjee's body.

  
"Ah,” said the young man with his hands in the air, "No one in there anymore." He watched without flinching as the reptilian officer took aim at the corpse with his organic disintegrator and fired.

  
"Right, now off your butt and come with me." The prisoner rose to his feet, hands still in the air. He swayed slightly for a moment.

  
"Sorry," he apologized. "Still finding my feet." He glanced down at them and chuckled to himself.

  
"Cut the comedy and move."


	12. Chapter 12

Lt. Ectah attempted to mentally list what had happened since he’d landed: 1. a team of archeologists had claimed not to be the criminal fugitives whose descriptions they fit, and that the other two persons who fit the description had been travellers and had already left; 2. the witness who’d contacted him in the first place had volunteered for a mindscan to prove the truth of her statement; 3. one of the suspects, when mindscanned, had proved to be innocent of any crimes yet guilty of concealing something; 4. the witness had then attacked his men, he’d decided to trust the archeologists instead, and had taken her and one of her companions prisoner and 5. shot a third.

After that, he decided, was when it had all got very confusing: 6, 7, 8. the archeologist who’d been mindscanned had been reported dead, along with the android, by Artek, who’d brought back a stranger he claimed had been standing over the bodies. Well, that stranger had disappeared before he could be questioned, and then Aika had found the android perfectly unharmed, and witnessed Artek disintegrating the other poor fellow’s body.

The only thing Lt. Ectah felt certain of at this point was that Artek couldn’t be trusted with anything. He sighed and scratched at the scales on the back of his head. The paperwork for this case was going to be hell.  
  
  
"Afters!" Dr. Saroyan, dropping her usual reserve, had run to the android’s side when Artek and Aika brought him back from the ship. Lou, who was closer, was already embracing him in relief. “And Sam? Is he—”

  
Afters smiled at them, suddenly looking both older and younger than before.

  
“We merged,” he whispered, with a cautious glance at the two officers, who were receiving a dressing-down from their commander. “Quite seamlessly.”

  
“But how does – ” Dr. Saroyan was gazing curiously up at her colleague.

  
"I know it must seem strange, but I feel really quite well.“ He paused, searching his mind. “Also, the last forty years of memory are in stereo, one might say.”

  
“The Doctor mentioned that you — that the part of you that was Afters had to erase some memories to make room for Bannerjee.”

  
“There is a gap, between the fall of the Empire and the time with the pirates.” He shuddered slightly. “Sorry — the part of me that was Bannerjee just had all his suspicions of the President’s cruelty confirmed by Afters’ memories. He never told him the full extent of it.”

  
“Why keep those memories, then?” asked Lou.

  
“I don’t like remembering that time, but I like that it’s over. And I doubt I could understand my present identity without that knowledge.” Dr. Saroyan frowned:

  
"You don't regret the merger, do you?"

  
"The contentment in my mind tells me no."

  
"You can't... eat or drink, though,” said Lou, doubtfully.

  
"That's why the President never made the switch. Couldn't bring himself to give up the pleasures of the flesh. But this body is full of life, even if it's artificial life. And I like being... together. I think – this is better than we could have planned. Unless the Doctor guessed — where is the Doctor, anyway?”

  
“Making his escape, I hope,” said Captain Li. She nodded towards Ectah, who was just winding up his lecture about Galactic law. “That lot found him in their ship, Bill rescued him, and he advised us to pretend to know nothing about the matter.”

* * *

  
The Doctor rattled the TARDIS door, or tried to.

  
“It’s frozen shut,” said Bill.

  
“I can fix that,” said a voice behind them, which did and did not belong to Afters. They turned around to find the team gathered.

  
“The cops have gone,” said Lou, “so we though it was safe to track you down.”

  
“As for your, er, ship’s door,” said the android, “If you’ll step back a moment—“ He pulled a thermos flask from one of his overcoat pockets and poured something steaming down the door of the blue police box, waited a few seconds, then put his shoulder to the door. With a slight cracking sound it swung inward.

  
“And here I thought you were going to shoot heat beams from your hands,” commented Bill.

  
“Doors and things freeze up around here,” said Dr. Saroyan.

  
“A lot,” added Lou. “Now give us a hug before you go,” she added to Bill, with a wink. The Doctor was studying Bannerjee-Afters’ eyes, questioningly.

  
“Yes,” said the historian, “We did. Did you know it would happen this way?” The time lord looked embarrassed.

  
“It was a possibility,” he admitted. “Given that you two had known each other so long.”

  
“It feels as though there's more inside my head, but it's quieter – as though there's at least twice as much, but everything's been rearranged to fit, for better traffic flow."

  
“Well, that’s what happens to your stuff when you move in together," said the Doctor. "You end up with two copies of all your favourite books. The important thing is, what do we call you now? Bannerafters?”

"Bannernoon, surely. Bannerafters doesn't exactly roll trippingly off the--"

  
"Bannernoon it is," said the Doctor. "And don't call me Shirley.”

  
“You’re still going to finish out your dig, though?” Bill asked. Dr. Saroyan smiled.

  
“I was afraid they’d want us to testify, but I think they’d rather leave us out of it as much as possible, now that they’ve caught Malbec and Azalea.” Bannernoon sighed, and shoved his hands in his overcoat pockets:

  
“And I’ve no idea how we’re going to explain to the University what happened to me. Tell me, Doctor, am I an android or a cyborg now? I breathe, but only out of habit.”

  
“Well, there’s always the truth - just tell them you’re now an immortal with a complex personality.”

  
“Not sure that’ll go over well with the faculty,” said Bannernoon in a doubtful tone.

  
“Seldom does,” the Doctor admitted.

* * *

  
In the end, faced with the prospect of trying to get past the Terra Echo University Chancellor’s notorious stubborness concerning any claims, from University employees, regarding unusual health issues – the team agreed to report the historian as deceased. They delayed the report as long as they dared, so that Bannernoon’s discreetly-worded messages of reassurance could reach his friends and relations first, and at the memorial service given by the University, a number of mourners were taken aside for explanations.

  
“I’m not sure how many of them believed me,” Bannernoon said to Dr. Saroyan afterwards, “but I felt I ought to say something.” He then added cheerfully that since he was now officially dead, he’d decided to go back to fieldwork, and to expect reports from the Xylerene Delta.

* * *

 

_Epilogue 1._

  
Captain Veetek’s nictating membranes flickered across her eyes as she glared across her desk at Lieutenant Ectah.

“And you left these archeologists to their own devices? After you and your men had caused the death of one of their own?”

  
“They clearly weren’t accomplices of the suspects we were there to bring in, but they seemed as keen to avoid an inquest into their colleague’s death as we were. Perhaps they just hadn’t liked him very much?”

  
“From his obituaries, that doesn’t seem too likely. Still, those obits don’t mention you, and claim it was an accident on the expedition, so it looks like they held up their end of your unauthorized deal. You’re sure he died *after* your suspects were caught and sealed and that they don’t know your part in it?” When Ectah nodded, she heaved a sigh that rattled her neck-frill. “Since you brought in the Malbec gang, we’ll risk leaving a civilian death out of the report. But this conversation is strictly off the record — if anyone ever makes the connection between us and the death of a scholar from Terra Echo University, it’s your ass on the line.”

* * *

 

_Epilogue 2._

  
“Doctor,” said Bill, rubbing her hands together— the TARDIS control room was warmer than the planet’s exterior had been, but she was still thawing out — “will they — he — I’m not sure of the right pronoun — anyway, will Bannernoon be all right?”

  
“Well, every life has ups and downs,” the Doctor began; then his eyes returned to his companion. “You don’t usually ask that about the people we meet.”

  
“The people we meet don’t usually end up as — as fusions,” Bill replied, hoping the reference wouldn’t confuse him.

  
“Oh, that. Well, identity’s a more fluid thing than many people think, or so I’ve always found every time I’ve regenerated.”

  
Bill made a mental note to question him further about this sometime, but would not let her train of thought be sent off-course:

  
“I mean — Bannerjee and Afters were such different people, even if they’d known each other a long time.”

  
“Oh, that’s all to the good, I think — after all it was their differences that drew them together. For someone with a memory as long as Afters, a fresh perspective...” He trailed off and became suddenly very interested in a control on the TARDIS console that Bill knew controlled nothing more complex than the control-room lighting. Sensing his embarrassment, she decided to change the subject:

  
“Do you know where I’d like to go sometime? Pablo Fanque’s Circus Royal. I saw on the internet a couple years ago that “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” was based on an old circus poster John Lennon found in a shop and, well, wouldn’t it be brilliant to go see the original circus?” The Doctor’s face lit up:

  
“Ah yes, old Pablo! Terrific with horses, and — other creatures. I’d forgotten about him, till you reminded me. About time we had a return engagement...”

* * *

 

_Epilogue 3._

The Xylerene farmer halted his _dzong-_ cart and asked the traveller walking next to the canal if he’d like a lift.

  
“Don’t often see humans around these parts,” he thrummed as the biped clambered aboard, to the fascination of his children who’d never seen a person with so many limbs and so few eyes.

  
“I’m not a human, exactly,” said the traveller. “It’s a long story.”

  
“We are on a long trip, if you wish to tell it,” the farmer replied. The traveller nodded courteously. He’d accepted the lift for the company rather than any practical need, for the _dzong-_ cart was no faster than walking, and in this sunny climate, he could walk without stopping for days and never tire. Folding himself into a reasonably efficient position (the cart had no seats), he began:

  
“Many long years ago, the last President of the Argellian Empire commissioned an android who would look like an idealized version of himself as a young man...”


End file.
